


a little tenderness (and truth)

by gabrielgoodman



Series: me and you; the oddest couple in the universe. [2]
Category: Madam Secretary
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Episode Related, Established Relationship, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 09:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17363822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabrielgoodman/pseuds/gabrielgoodman
Summary: Sometimes, it makes Blake a little dizzy. Their proximity does, too, in all the best ways. In the ways summer tastes sweet on your tongue and smells nostalgic during cold and long winters, how you forget about the sweltering heat between tall buildings and dusty air in vacated offices because you are so sure your fingertips will freeze off if you spend a second longer in minor degrees with only clouds to look up to. Blake is not a fan of warm climates but he can admit that this is – special, that he wouldn’t change whatever they have for the entire world and stars combined because it makes him whole and for someone who has always striven for more, more, always more, suddenly this calm seems right.(set after 5x11family separation: part 2)





	a little tenderness (and truth)

**Author's Note:**

> Finally I sat my ass down to write a sequel to my soulmate AU. I watched the most recent episode of Madam Secretary and the vowel renewal made me so soft _and_ they gave me Mike and Blake RIGHT next to each other. Which is already more than I could ask for. This is a bit of a mess because I haven't written fiction in English for a while now but whatever. I love them.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, I do not own any of those characters and no profit is made with this work of fiction. This isn’t beta’d or anything and I’m no native speaker so there might be a few grammar, syntax or spelling mistakes. Feel free to adopt and take care of them.
> 
> Title: The Killers - Miss Atomic Bomb

“I went all the way to Arizona to watch them kiss inside a jail. It was disgustingly cute, I swear to God and you know, whatever else anyone believes in. Fate? Soulmates? What do the kids dig these days?” Mike’s smile is not entirely free of irony and Blake rolls his eyes, thumping through his phone on his side of Mike’s bed. It should be weird but it isn’t, not at all, not after the two years they’ve spent together like this and then some. Really, Blake’s bedside is the smallest curiosity in this whole scheme that is their life; more worrisome might be the endorsement of Russell Jackson (gruntled and grumbled and very much private as it was but endorsement is endorsement and because Blake needs everyone he’s ever met to like him, he takes it gladly. Mike tends to make fun of his people-pleaser-tendencies, but he’s never let that sway him; Blake is as steadfast as he can be.)

His eyes drop to the mark on Mike’s wrist, his name written in the neat letters of his own handwriting, as impeccably shaped as everything else Blake touches, and his heartbeat naturally speeds up. The chemicals in his blood and his brain have yet to find some quiet and solitude around Mike Barnow, instead they seem to jump right out of his skin, make him lose his train of thought and his footing on the ground and it is absolutely embarrassing and yet, Blake finds himself longing for this feeling that he has come to identify as something a little bit grander than simple attraction and dangerously teetering on the edge of a full blown love declaration. 

Blake smiles and folds the ridiculously high thread-count blanket back to make room next to him for the other man, looking up from the screen of his phone to watch Mike move back and forth next to the mattress in shorts and a faded Columbia shirt. It’s just as _disgustingly cute_ and disgustingly domestic as Mike has put what he’s seen earlier today, and it fuels his self-loathing an absurd amount but he won’t ever say so out loud; Mike can probably tell anyway which means words aren’t of any use even though that’s what Blake has always been awfully good at. They both are. Words are their weapons and words are their work and between them, they could probably build DC from the ground up with words alone and tear it apart just as quickly.

Sometimes, it makes Blake a little dizzy. Their proximity does, too, in all the best ways. In the ways summer tastes sweet on your tongue and smells nostalgic during cold and long winters, how you forget about the sweltering heat between tall buildings and dusty air in vacated offices because you are so sure your fingertips will freeze off if you spend a second longer in minor degrees with only clouds to look up to. Blake is not a fan of warm climates but he can admit that this is – _special,_ that he wouldn’t change whatever they have for the entire world and stars combined because it makes him whole and for someone who has always striven for more, more, always more, suddenly this calm seems right. Maybe he should change his mind about soulmates, the initial scoff that’s still sitting ready at the back of his throat when someone mentions it and Blake briefly forgets that _this_ is his life, has been his life for long enough now. Mike completes him and now, _that_ is an absolutely and completely repulsive thought.

And yet, it’s true.

“Can you please stop talking,” Blake mutters, much belated, and tilts his head a little to the side, still watching, still mesmerized because he can never keep his eyes off Mike, it’s like he’s been destined to do so from the beginning up until the end of his life. Sometimes Blake hates the cosmos for making him this kind of person and other times, he can’t and doesn’t and won’t imagine his life any other way.

Mike actually stops in his step and stares at Blake who’s still sitting on the bed with the blanket folded back and an expectant look in his eyes.

“Did you just tell me to stop talking?” He asks, slowly, like he can’t believe Blake did just that, as if Blake doesn’t do it all the time because Mike can talk and talk and talk and never stop talking, Mike can talk Blake to sleep, all sweet murmurs that no one would ever pin on the devil himself but that Blake has learnt to appreciate as much as the burning on his back when Mike puts his hands on him and melts him into the sheets, arranges him all new, golden and shiny. Chemical reactions, Blake reminds himself when he can feel the blood rushing to his head, and he clears his throat.

“It was a beautiful party today and I’m glad it restored your faith in true love,” Blake replies only partly sarcastic and puts his phone down on the bedside table, “And I would be forever in debt to you if you’d come to bed now so I don’t have to break an anxious sweat from all your running around.”

A slow grin spreads on Mike’s features, to soft to be harmful or mean, and warmth floods Blake like the first rays of sun during spring; it sets deep in his bones and burns like a bonfire from within his chest.

“Wow, you really are _so_ sweet, I’m such a lucky man,” Mike declares and finally moves onto the bed, kneels, he’s so close that Blake can smell his body wash and his toothpaste which is the same that he uses because they share these things these days. He leans forward to close the distance between them and gently kiss Blake on the mouth because today has apparently really made him go soft but there is no reason to complain; he likes Mike this way, no edges and all curves, knows of the honor that is to be with Mike B. like this. If any, Blake is the one who’s gotten lucky even though it has taken him long enough to realize.

He makes a noise into the kiss, a content sigh that makes his shoulders slump and his back lean against the headboard, finally relaxing. Where Mike’s touch can set him on the edge and alight him, it can also put him under, calm him as if he’s an experienced sailor on Blake's rough sea, quiet the nagging voice inside of him spouting doubts. Maybe, he considers, Soulmates are really fragments of yourself, ready to mend the broken pieces, those, that you can’t stand and don’t want and reject, but unbeknownst to you there’s someone out there, not to fix you, but to simply love you, love who you are in the darkest, deepest part of you, this bottomless cavity in your chest. Blake doesn’t need to be fixed but he needed to be seen, to be loved, to be appreciated and taken for what he is. For the longest time, he denied himself. For even longer he ignored the mark on his back spelling out a name he didn’t wish to be true, letters he didn’t want to recognize like he had never learnt to read lest write in the first place.

And then Mike, the bastard, waltzed in completely unannounced and dragged him into Elizabeth’s office and turned his whole, ordered life around. Where once was a carefully, slowly, meticulously executed plan, there was now chaos, the unknown and yet, Blake didn’t seem to mind much. With Mike, he’s learned he could do most things without fear and only slightly sweaty palms.

Blake’s hand finds Mike’s cheek naturally and he feels familiar fingers mess up the reminders of his neatly coiffed hair and twisting strands into unruly curls; his heart beats hard against his ribcage like it wants to flee the onslaught, his heighted blood pressure and flushed skin. Instead, Blake sinks into the feeling and embraces him much as the man in front of him, who wraps an arm around Blake’s shoulders and cranes his neck at what must be an uncomfortable angle. _Oh, the things you do for love._ If Blake would be a man of more, greater sensibility he’d change their position but he is too comfortable to even lift a finger with one glass of wine too much inside of him and Mike doesn’t seem to mind the position at all; he’s stubborn this way, would rather have Blake instantly than easily, would rather drag him away from work and into some empty office where anyone could walk in on them than wait till they are in their respected homes and that’s fine with Blake too because his stupid mark has created a monster after all. Another one who can’t say no to Mike Barnow even if he tried (and when he does, it takes most of his willpower. It’s just thrilling to see that it works the same in reverse and Mike can never decline him anything when Blake bats his eyes. It’s fun and exhilarating and often it thrills Blake).

“I love you too,” Blake replies, giving it a well-meant beat till he adds, “ _Asshole_.”

A laugh pearls against his lips, though to call it a laugh would be a stretch and they both know it; Mike barks in public and chuckles in private, something deep and quiet for the younger man to receive only. That this is a privilege, Blake knows too because he didn’t graduate top of his class and valedictorian for nothing; he could’ve probably tried his hand at a law career too, just like Mike, but he’s too much of a control freak to even consider.

And besides, he’s sure things have worked out just fine for him.

“Not to be cheesy,” Mike says as he presses another kiss to the corner of Blake’s mouth, effortlessly and almost mindlessly because he can read the younger man like no one else does. It’s unnerving to be known this intimately, it’s why Blake has put the whole soulmate business off for so long only to be swept up in it a hot second later; now, there’s nowhere to go but forward. “But I’m the smartest asshole in all of DC _and_ I’m your asshole and in here,” he taps the tip of his finger against Blake’s chest, “you’re really fucking happy about it, Blake Moran.”

He curls his hand around the back of Mike’s head where his hair is short and buzzed to kiss him harder, drag him in, and Mike has to reach out for the headboard to keep his balance and not crush Bake; not that Blake would mind, you know, because there are little things he cares more about than Mike B. and his well-being is definitely not on that list. Heaven could fall and Hell could rise, and Blake wouldn’t care long as Mike would be alright, fine, unharmed, somewhere in eyesight so Blake could confirm it himself and wouldn’t have to worry. The earth could crumble beneath his feet and split apart, and yet all that would matter would be _them_. Maybe that’s the overachiever in him wanting to make this the most special, profound thing in his life. Always striving for more.

Does it get any more than having Mike Barnow as your soulmate? Hasn’t this circumstance alone ticked all the boxes he never even considered in the first place? Sure, it has made his life crazy difficult, but it has also made him … _whole_. Like he had been missing Mike all his life and he just didn’t know about it and now, he finally has woken up from his slumber, eyes open and heart crisp and clear. Unafraid.

Or maybe, Blake is afraid all the time, a tremble in his hand that he is trying to keep at bay with endless planning, keeping everyone at arm’s length and tight-pressed shirts and designer suits. Most of the time, it works. And only once, he let his guard down because only Mike has woven his way under his skin which makes sense given their nature but still surprises him from time to time. When he asked Blake to dance tonight, for example, a pleasant surprise but a surprise nonetheless, never mind how close they are and how appropriate it was. Blake will probably never forget Jay’s wide eyes when he saw them arrive together and step out on dance floor later, never mind how he could feel the nervous thrum of Mike’s pulse under his own skin.

A wire’s connecting them, and Blake has no intention to cut it.

“Hmm, you make me happy,” he admits, humming, easier to say now after he had to cut off his own leg to say it in the first place; that emotional vulnerability doesn’t come easy to him, well, he never really talks about it. Elizabeth can read it out of his tense shoulders and the set line of his mouth or a frown on his forehead; she knows what to say to make him feel at ease. She’s made his job so much easier by feeding him work he could lose himself in, by giving him a purpose, by giving him pressure to figure himself out.

Usually, Mike has no use for such trivial things as happiness, but his fingers dig into Blake’s shirt; he can tell and smiles against Mike’s lips, leaning in to kiss him impossibly deeper, sweeter like honey.

“As long as I’m the only one,” Mike says like Blake doesn’t bear proof on his skin, dark ink in sloping, messy letters that will always be there, a reminder that burns under the shorter man’s hand right now. “And you’ll visit me in jail.”

Blake laughs, loud and free and fearless.

“With pleasure.”


End file.
